Figure skating delivers this Olympics

Figure skating enthusiasts have nothing to complain about this Olympics.

Tight competition, broken records, history-making performances, a heartbreaking passing, and commentator drama have made for many news stories in the past week. But let's start from the beginning.


Pairs short program and free skate:



Image from zimbio.com

China's husband and wife duo Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo celebrated Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year by beating their own world best in the short program. The next day they nailed their free skate, giving China their first-ever Olympic figure skating title.


Mens short program and free skate:

After a rather disappointing showing of short programs, which included a shaky short program by the even-adorable Canadian skater Patrick Chan, three men skated solid programs, setting up a race for gold.

2006 Olympic champion, Russian Evgeny Plushenko, was first after the short program, but America's Evan Lysacek and Japan's Daisuke Takahashi finished less than one point back.

Image from blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com


But in the free skate, Lysacek proved that the quad does not conquer all. The American opted for a safe, quad-free performance, but was otherwise error-free and delivered a well-skated artistic performance with solid footwork to defeat Plushenko, who completed a quad-triple combination, by 1.31 points.

But another American skater has been rudely shoved into the centre of contraversy. A gay rights group has lodged a formal complaint against two French-language broadcasters in Quebec for comments made about American figure skater Johnny Weir.


Image from silverjacket.typepad.com

The broadcasters said that the ever-flamboyant, never-holds-back Weir hurt figure skating's image and should be made to take a gender test - a ridiculous and extremely homophobic accusation about a skater who has never clarified his sexual orientation, arguing that it was a private matter.

Weir has not commented on the comments, but U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said, "the comment is so inappropriate that we will not even justify it with a response".

Ice Dancing compulsory dance, original dance, and free dance:

Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin 1.02 lead over Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir after the compulsory dance, but their controversial Aboriginal-themed original dance failed to impress, even though they toned down their costumes, which offended Australian Aboriginal elders earlier this season.



Image from thestandard.com.hk

Virtue and Moir led by 2.60 points over their training partners, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White.

After Davis and White delivered a flawless and captivating performance set to music from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera", Virtue and Moir needed a good skate.

But they came through, skating a beautiful and moving performance for the gold, making them Canada's first-ever gold medal winners in ice dance and the youngest Olympic ice dancing winners ever.

Womens short program:

A great night for the girls tonight. Mao Asada became only the second female to land a triple axel at the Olympics. Then the next skater, Korea's Kim Yu-Na, the heavy favourite for gold, set a world best score for her short program.

But the night belonged to Joannie Rochette whose heartbreaking story made her the emotional favourite. Her mother, 55-year-old Therese Rochette, passed away overnight on Saturday. A heart-broken Joannie, 24, was informed early Sunday morning, two days before she was to skate her short program.

No one would have blamed Rochette, Canada's hope for a medal in the womens competition, for pulling out. But Joannie skated tonight.

And skated cleanly. She nailed all of her elements and added some Spanish flair to her tango-themed piece. She sits in third heading into the free skate.

But some things are more important than medals. And I think everyone watching her performance understood, as Rochette burst into tears at the end of her performance. I doubt their was a dry eye in the rink - there certainly wasn't on my futon. Good luck to Joannie.


Image from cbc.ca

Despite all the stories figure skating has given us the past few weeks, Joannie's is the most gripping and inspirational.

Facebook versus Twitter

Image from blog.websourcing.fr

Facebook and Twitter are two fascinating social media outlets with many similarities.

But they must have some differences.

Otherwise why would I love Facebook, but loath Twitter with everything in me?

I have a lot of friends on Facebook, but besides my fellow CreComms, (many of whom were dragged, kicking and screaming, to Twitter much like myself) very few friends of mine use Twitter. Making them useless consultants in my quest to find the difference between the two.

The best explanation I found came from Tiffany on Yahoo Answers:

"Twitter feels like coffee after the service at church where many people are gathered but the conversation is often passing and brief. Don't get me wrong, I have taken many of those brief conversations on Twitter offline and have formed incredible relationships.

Facebook, on the other hand, feels more like lunch with a friend where I can
leisurely be introduced to various friends and savor the time we have
to spend together. There is no time, or character limit, and many more
options to delight."

I like the options Facebook provides. I can scroll the newsfeed and see what everyone's up to, I can check out pictures from a fun night last weekend, I can carry on private threads with old friends and send messages to people from high school that I would never bother picking up the phone to call.

There are so many options besides reading the status updates, which some people use as space to share vague, personal, melancholic, melodramatic thoughts like "wonders why things have to end this way?" or "is enjoying the second day of the rest of his life wishing he'd done something yesterday."

But on Twitter, that's all you get. Less than 140 characters. And with the accessibility of Twitter from mobile phones, those updates turn into "is on the bus", or "made a grilled cheese". I know.

But in terms of public relations, the usefulness and the difference between the two becomes more clear to me. On Facebook, a PR practitioner can create a page on behalf of their clients and infiltrate other pages' friends lists to gain friends of their own. Whose friends will see that their friends joined this page and think they should too. And so on and so on.

These pages have room for product or company descriptions, pictures, videos and more, but more importantly, people can write on the page's wall giving feedback to the PR practitioner.

Can Twitter do that? No.

But essentially, Twitter can serve as an annoying, but constant reminder that your client exists. There are multiple 140-character messages you can make up about your client and share with the world. But more importantly, with retweets, your followers can share your message with their followers, who may then choose to follow you and see your link to your facebook page, which links with your website...

See how this works?

Buble's Back! And his PR team is working hard!

I'm not afraid to say it. I love Michael Buble.



thedailybuble.spaces.live.com

Tickets went on sale for his Winnipeg show today, and yes, I'm going! It'll be my third Buble experience, but I'm as excited for it this time as I was the first time. Not only is he a great live singer, but he's hilarious! He's definitely the best all-around performer I've ever seen, hands down.

But, more relevant to school, when I was sitting in PR class yesterday, I started thinking about all the work his PR team has been doing to promote his tour. This week, his Canadian dates were announced and more dates were added to his US tour.

Which started a barrage of Buble appearances everywhere! He performed on Saturday Night Live last Saturday (see the video of his hilarious skit below with John Hamm from Mad Men), and he has upcoming performances on Ellen Degeneres and the Today Show next week.

Preceding his Australian tour, he is acting as an official winter Olympics correspondent on Australian television. He is huge in Australia, but the winter Olympics aren't very popular there, so they are hoping to bring in ratings by adding him as a personality. But it also serves as a good partnership for him to get some air time (plus as part owner of the WHL's Vancouver Giants, I don't think he minds sitting around talking about hockey and his hometown of Vancouver in a nice warm climate!)

He has also released (in time for Valentine's Day) a special 6-song digital download of songs he has previously recorded but hasn't released.

So congratulations to the Michael Buble public relations squad! You have certainly kept me interested this week with announcements and performances.

PS. If you have an opening on your squad, I would love to join!